NOTES: Marjorie Fowler is Nunnally Johnson's daughter, Gene Fowler, Jr. is his son-in-law. Guy and Constance Jones also wrote There Was A Little Man, filmed in the same year it was published - 1948 - as Luck of the Irish. Fred Clark who plays Basil was not a professional actor but a real-life butler - for Humphrey Bogart.
SYNOPSIS: Not a clone of "Miranda" at all. In any event, "Miranda" was not published in the U.S. until 1948, two years after the Jones' book. In this one, the mermaid is a device - a charming device - to circumvent the Hays Office. It's a sadly wistful little sex "comedy" of youth and old age, beautifully summed up in William Powell's line, murmured with an off-hand sadness, an almost casual regret: "Fifty - the old age of youth; the youth of old age."
COMMENT: A much under-rated and misunderstood film. I blame myself too. First time I saw it, I found it a complete mystery that such a slight piece of whimsy could have been adapted from a novel of no less than 242 pages. Did Johnson throw all the novel's amusing characters and incidents away, I wondered, to concentrate on the one-joke mermaid? Ah, youth!
Actually, the mermaid doesn't come in for thirty minutes - charmingly introduced in what would have been Irving Pichel's one really inspired piece of direction, were it not undermined by Mrs Fowler's intercutting a banal reaction shot of William Powell. But even daughters cannot ruin Johnson's delightful idea of making the mermaid silent. What a contrast to the garrulous Miranda!
True, Miranda sings, but off-camera, a siren song deftly blended by the voices of Winifred Harris and Lydia Bilbrook.
Miss Blyth herself is not one of my favorites, but Russell Metty's soft, flattering photography lends her face an endearingly perfect vulnerability. Her appeal to Powell is from the very start, protective.
Powell's performance is one of the most skillful of his career. He and Johnson manage to balance between creating an involving, amusing and sympathetic character without toppling into farce, disdain or outright unbelievability.
The support players and characters are a big assist here. Clinton Sundberg is most amusing, yet totally credible, and makes the most of his richly witty lines.
Lumsden Hare is a more familiar type - the stage Englishman - but who could fail to respond to his irritated running gag and the perversely named "Flying Squad" which is passed by everything on the road?
This film was obviously made on a tight "A" budget. The sets are both artistic yet dramatically functional. All the same, obvious backdrops and special effects reveal to the trained eye that the film was entirely lensed in the studio. Even the underwater location sequences in Florida were made by a second unit with an extremely-difficult-to-detect double for Miss Blyth (who does her own swimming in the close-ups).
Pichel's direction, alas, is somewhat ponderous and heavy-handed, altogether too emphatic, although players like William Powell most of the time and Clinton Sundberg all the time are able to deliver their lines with just the right touch of casual off-handedness that embellishes dry wit.
Metty's superlative photography has already been commented upon. It only remains to laud the delightful music which contributes so much to both pace and atmosphere; and the technical wizardry of the mermaid itself.
SYNOPSIS: Not a clone of "Miranda" at all. In any event, "Miranda" was not published in the U.S. until 1948, two years after the Jones' book. In this one, the mermaid is a device - a charming device - to circumvent the Hays Office. It's a sadly wistful little sex "comedy" of youth and old age, beautifully summed up in William Powell's line, murmured with an off-hand sadness, an almost casual regret: "Fifty - the old age of youth; the youth of old age."
COMMENT: A much under-rated and misunderstood film. I blame myself too. First time I saw it, I found it a complete mystery that such a slight piece of whimsy could have been adapted from a novel of no less than 242 pages. Did Johnson throw all the novel's amusing characters and incidents away, I wondered, to concentrate on the one-joke mermaid? Ah, youth!
Actually, the mermaid doesn't come in for thirty minutes - charmingly introduced in what would have been Irving Pichel's one really inspired piece of direction, were it not undermined by Mrs Fowler's intercutting a banal reaction shot of William Powell. But even daughters cannot ruin Johnson's delightful idea of making the mermaid silent. What a contrast to the garrulous Miranda!
True, Miranda sings, but off-camera, a siren song deftly blended by the voices of Winifred Harris and Lydia Bilbrook.
Miss Blyth herself is not one of my favorites, but Russell Metty's soft, flattering photography lends her face an endearingly perfect vulnerability. Her appeal to Powell is from the very start, protective.
Powell's performance is one of the most skillful of his career. He and Johnson manage to balance between creating an involving, amusing and sympathetic character without toppling into farce, disdain or outright unbelievability.
The support players and characters are a big assist here. Clinton Sundberg is most amusing, yet totally credible, and makes the most of his richly witty lines.
Lumsden Hare is a more familiar type - the stage Englishman - but who could fail to respond to his irritated running gag and the perversely named "Flying Squad" which is passed by everything on the road?
This film was obviously made on a tight "A" budget. The sets are both artistic yet dramatically functional. All the same, obvious backdrops and special effects reveal to the trained eye that the film was entirely lensed in the studio. Even the underwater location sequences in Florida were made by a second unit with an extremely-difficult-to-detect double for Miss Blyth (who does her own swimming in the close-ups).
Pichel's direction, alas, is somewhat ponderous and heavy-handed, altogether too emphatic, although players like William Powell most of the time and Clinton Sundberg all the time are able to deliver their lines with just the right touch of casual off-handedness that embellishes dry wit.
Metty's superlative photography has already been commented upon. It only remains to laud the delightful music which contributes so much to both pace and atmosphere; and the technical wizardry of the mermaid itself.